"new activity" choices

[Chani]

when you click the "new activity" button, you currently see about five 
different plugins, plus a template (sooon to be many templates) and a clone 
option.

I watched a user trying the activity UI at opensuse, and he had no idea what 
option to choose. I realised that's quite understandable - how would he know 
that the default plugin is called "Desktop" and not "Grouping Desktop" or 
"Grid Desktop"? the options are just plain overwhelming, and with templates 
that's likely to get worse.

so, how can we improve that dialog? I want it to suggest the best choice for 
newbies without overwhelming them, but still offer the alternatives that they 
can try out when they're ready.

my first thought is, banish templates and plugins to their own submenus. this 
will probably help with the initial drowning-in-choices problem, but it's not 
enough on its own.
having the clone option and two submenus suggests choosing to clone - which 
isn't half bad. I think that our default "desktop" plugin should be promoted 
up there too - it's one we know works, and is probably what the user wants. 
and they can always change the plugin in settings anyways.
either that, or we create a default template, like the "default panel", and 
promote that one to be in the root menu.

actually, since they can change the plugin in settings, does it make *sense* 
to also offer that option at activity creation time? it's a nice shortcut if 
you have multiple screen and want them all to use a particular plugin. other 
than that, it's just one more choice to make when what you're likely thinking 
is "I need to send this document off to its own activity so I can deal with it 
later, who gives a fuck about widgets?" ;)

so... what did I end up suggesting here?
-remove the choice of plugins, default to "desktop"
-put one "empty desktop" option in the root menu
-put templates in a sub-menu (if there's >1 of course)
and perhaps also:
-put one good template in the root menu.

thoughts? :)

-- 
Chani
http://chani.ca
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